keep you safe
by electrikitty
Summary: it seems that a certain prince is afraid of thunderstorms… the royal tutor / one-shot


**Keep You Safe**

Lightning stabs the palace grounds in a shuddering spear, nearly rocking the palace off its foundations and nearly scaring Prince Leonhard and I out of our wits.

'Uwaah!' Leonhard yelps.

I try to relax my shoulders, still tense from the fright. Instantaneous lightning and thunder means that the strikes are literally falling on our heads. I part the curtains next to my chair and take a look. 'Well, at that, should we call it quits, Highness?'

Leonhard glances down, and shakes his head. 'No, I want to finish. Next page.'

'As you wish.'

I had stopped by Prince Leonhard's room earlier with a graded essay, intending to hand it over and retire straight to bed. But on handing the papers over, Leonhard had taken one look at the manuscript — bleeding with red ink — and ordered me in to review the damage.

I had half-expected the Prince to throw a fit and demand why his answers were wrong. But it seems that his attitude is improving, and he genuinely wants to improve on his mistakes.

So we're sorting through the pages in the firelight, in the prince's room.

Or at least, Leonhard is and I am _attempting_ to. The problem being that I'm still in a somewhat perturbed frame of mind.

The reason being that the prince answered my knock at the door dressed in a piece of pink nightwear that would have been more suitable for one of Prince Licht's girlfriends, and it was no credit to Leonhard that he actually made the overly-lacy attire work, with his doll-like hair and blue eyes. In short, it looked both well-suited and ridiculous at once and the mental contrast was enough to make one's head hurt.

Suffice it to say, I had done a double take and nearly tripped over my own feet. I had also asked myself the same question yet again: _who chooses Prince Leonhard's clothes?_

I've adjusted for the most part, but as I look over to see Leonhard sitting in a tangle of sheets and pillows, adjusting a sleeve back over his shoulder, I can't help but think, _why?!_

Another spear of lighting strikes the ground and the sky cracks open, pouring out a deluge in a heavy, thundering roar.

I look back out the window, and can barely see anything for the rain. 'Good heavens,' I whisper. 'That doesn't look all together pleasant.'

I turn back to Leonhard — to say that we should adjourn, as we won't be able to hear each other talking over the noise — only to see that the prince is gripping his pencil tightly enough to snap it.

'Prince?'

Leonhard jumps, then blushes, and sets the pencil down. 'Sorry. Yes?'

I stare at him. 'Prince… are you afraid of thunderstorms?'

Leonhard blushes furiously and stammers, covering his face with his forearm. 'I-I-I am _not_! I'm fifteen and an _adult_ , and what adult is scared of thunderstorms?!'

Another clap of lighting and the prince yelps, jolting so hard that he falls out of bed and hits the floor with a crash, half the pillows falling on top of him in an avalanche. I run over and unearth him, tossing the pillows back onto the bed. I offer him my hand, and… what a surprise, he's blushing.

Yet his hands are shaking, and his knuckles whiten as he clenches his fists in a vain attempt to make the shaking stop.

'Are you quite all right, Prince?'

'I'm fine!' he snaps, and pushes the last of the pillows aside. Yet his lips are trembling, ever so slightly.

I help him up, then take him by surprise and lead him over to a nearby settee, and he barely has the time to sit down before I draw him into an awkward embrace.

'Wh… Wha…?' Leonhard protests. 'Hey! Get off!' He's so shocked that he seems to have forgotten his reflexive instinct to blush, so he settles for holding his arms as far out of the way as he can keep them, positively _fuming_. But he doesn't outright push me off the couch, at least.

' _Hmph._ '

He winds his silky blonde hair around a finger and sulks, yet with the barest, faintest, hint of vulnerability.

I let him go and take his hand in mine, letting him have a moment of quiet between the thunderbolts.

I remember when I first met the prince, I thought I saw a hint of fragility beneath all his shows of arrogance and pride. I wondered if deep down, he might just be a timid child hiding behind a show of bravado. Yet his haughty behaviour led me to discount it.

But after all that, sometimes he's not a prince with a reputation, for either pride or beauty. Sometimes he's merely a child scared of a thunderstorm.

It turns out that hint of fragility was real after all.

'It's all right, Prince.'

His eyes flicker, and he looked away, embarrassed. 'Stop laughing.'

'I'm not laughing. Besides, when do I ever laugh?'

It startles Leonhard into looking at me. 'Was that a… joke?'

'A bad one, it seems—'

 _BOOM_

Leonhard jolts and nearly knocks me right off the couch.

'Are you all right, Prince?'

He's still blushing. Leonhard rolls the pencil between his fingers — he still has it — and squeezes it. 'I don't… I don't like loud… noises.'

I rest a hand on his shoulder, and rack my brain to try and think of what might have led him to develop that fear. He glances at me, and hesitates, yet doesn't push my hand away.

 _Loud noises… the palace… tutors… that one tutor…_

I lean forward and catch his eye. 'Is it your fear of teacher's pointers? The noise?'

Leonhard's eyes widen. 'How did you know?'

'It was a logical guess.'

Leonhard looks down at my other hand, lying in my lap. His eyes flicker. 'Yeah. …I never liked loud noises when I was a kid, but then we had that… tutor. The sound of the pointer, on the desk, on the blackboard, on…' He swallowed. 'I couldn't stand loud noises anymore. They sounded like that pointer.'

 _Prince…_

Leonhard blinks his emotions away, and tries to smile. 'S-Stupid, huh? I've always been pathetic like that…'

'No, Prince.'

I tilt my head to him and whisper in his ear, trying to give him a break from all the noise surrounding us. 'We associate sound and other sensory information with different things. It's normal.' I look at the fireplace, then back at the prince, looking into his blue eyes. 'I just wish that you had had a teacher who didn't give you so many bad memories. That you could hear sounds and think of things that brought you happiness, not pain.'

He hesitates. '…Mm.' Leonhard rests his head on my shoulder and exhales. 'Mm.'

The fireplace glows. Lightning crackles overhead.

'Keep talking.'

'Pardon?'

'Keep talking. It's a better sound than all of… that.'

 _A better sound?_

'…I don't think you have to worry about the storm itself, at any rate.'

The prince lifts his head, confused. 'Why?'

I poke the edge of his clothing, with a fair amount of skepticism. 'Because your clothes are made of silk. Somewhat overly-pink clothes, but made of silk nonetheless, and silk is an insulator. It absorbs electricity. I've heard folktales about people who were struck by lightning and were perfectly fine because their jacket had a silk lining.'

'I see… but — struck by lightning?!' Leonhard panics.

 _Oh dear_. I squeeze Leonhard's shoulder, cutting him off before he can get started on that track. 'Not that there's any chance of us getting struck by lighting, either. Not with all the ornamentation and domes and spires on the palace roof. All of those high points will draw the lighting up above and leave us in peace, more or less.'

Leonhard looks up at the ceiling, with a wry smile. 'So I guess we've just got to listen to it all, then.'

'It should abate in a while.'

Another roll of thunder. It should abate, but not any time soon, it seems. I let Leonhard go. 'Will you be all right now?'

'Of course,' the prince huffs. He gets up and stalks over to his bed, jumps on, turns around, and sits, arms crossed and glaring. 'I'm a mature adult and adults don't — '

Another crack of thunder; Leonhard can't help it, he flinches and yelps. He buries his face in his hands in embarrassment, saying, 'Ugh. I just can't make myself stop…'

While a little flinching and getting startled every now and again isn't too big a problem, I'm worried for the prince if he falls asleep to the sound of the lightning in this frame of mind. It could set off night terrors, and that's the last thing the prince needs at this point.

I sort through all my options, then give in. I kick my boots off and prop my feet up on the couch. 'I'm afraid I'm too tired to return to my room,' I say. 'I'll have to take advantage of your kind hospitality.'

'Haah?' Leonhard stares at me for a moment, then sighs in disbelief when he realises I'm not going anywhere. I can see him struggling, one hand hovering with indecision — as to whether to just throw me out and go to sleep — but he gives up. He throws a spare pillow in my direction and flops onto the remaining pile. 'You're such a pain,' he grumbles.

I catch the pillow and place it on the couch. It appears I survived, more or less. If it were any other night, he would have kicked up a tremendous fuss or hauled me out of the room by the scruff of my neck. But I rightly guessed…

That the prince didn't want to be alone tonight.

'Hey. Heine.'

'Yes, Prince?'

'I guess I can think of this now.'

'Pardon?'

He grits his teeth, then whispers the words. 'When I hear the sound of lightning. I can think about something that makes me happy, instead of all the other things.' He dashes a hand over his eyes, and gives me a smile. 'A good memory.'

 _This makes him happy?_ I relax at hearing the prince's words, at knowing that I've been able to help my charge. That I was able to help him be happy.

'I'm glad, Prince.'

The echo of lightning lags further and further behind the thunder.

'Prince?'

'Mm?'

'If you count the seconds between the lightning and the thunder, you can work out how many miles away the storm is.'

'Really?'

Another crack of thunder.

'One.'

'Two.'

'Four.'

'Three, Prince.'

'Wait, huh—'

Thunder rumbles in the distance. 'It's over a mile away.'

'Is that…' Leonhard yawns. '…far?'

I chuckle. 'Depends on how you look at it. Fairly far.'

Leonhard drifts off, the words muffled by his pillow. 'I'm too tired to look at it…'

I smile and lie down, half-hiding my face in the softness of my pillow. I take off my glasses. I'm tired as well, but I'm glad that I was able to help him.

'One…'

'Three…'

'Sweet dreams, Prince.'

His eyes flicker open for the briefest moment. And though he doesn't know it, his eyes would never be lit with such a beautiful silver glow if it wasn't for the lightning spilling from the curtains.

He smiles tiredly. 'You too.'

And they closed their eyes, and dreamed of thunderstorms.

 _The End_

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 **A/N:** Reviews welcome, and thanks for reading!


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